#Tar Pit

[teratophallia]

Monster Design for @/cocoapuppii on BlueSky and Twitter!! They won my free monster design raffle and this is what we collabed on <3 Want to see the slight NSFT version of him? Check me out on Bluesky (18+ ONLY) for the full res, or Twitter (18+ ONLY)!

[creepyclothdoll]

Pit

I have a friend who lives in a tar pit. 

I love them. But if you hang out with them a lot, the tar gets on you and you can’t get it off for the longest time. It’s really easy to get stuck to them and fall into the pit if you’re not careful. But most people are. Most people avoid the pit entirely. That’s why my friend is lonely most of the time.

When I first met them, they were about waist-deep in the tar. You’d never know it, but under that black sticky mess was a pair of the most cutsey socks you ever saw. White fluffy pomeranians crocheted on. That’s what they said to me, anyway. All I could ever make out were the beady eyes of little black creatures clinging to their legs, slicked with viscous, heavy liquid.

They made some jokes about the tar pit, and we laughed. It was harder to pry them out than you’d think. It took all five of us, days of patience, and several contraptions. They sat down on the edge of the granite ledge overlooking the tar pit, their lower half covered in hot black ooze which stuck to the dirt and accumulated dead leaves and sand. 

They wrinkled their nose at this.

“How come this isn’t happening to you?” they said, looking at our blue jeans and dusty hiking boots, which were mostly clear of tar. 

“It is,” I said, showing them the tarry mess on my hands and elbows, coated with debris. 

“Only because you touched me,” they replied, staring at the dirt and tar on themselves with growing disgust.  “I think I would have died if you hadn’t come,” they said to me. When we started to leave, they started to cry. “You are abandoning me now? After saving me?” They asked. 

“Obviously we want you to come with us,” I said. 

“It’s because I’m made of tar,” they spat. 

We told them they were not made of tar. But nothing we said could convince them. We tried to scrape the tar off of them, but they only panicked when our hands came away blackened again. 

“We have to leave,” my other friends said to me after a long long time. “We can’t stay here forever, waiting for them to be ready. No one can survive here.”

They were right. The tar pit stank. The tar gurgled and sucked and emitted foul-smelling gasses. Nothing grew around here, and nothing could live long in this place. 

My friends left us. I was the only one who stayed.

“I will prove to you that the tar comes off,” I promised. “I will prove to you that you belong in the world.”

Every day, we took a little walk further and further from the tar pit. My friend saw things that delighted them. They heard birdsong. They tasted crabapples and raspberries and wild leeks. But sometimes, insects would get stuck to the tar on their legs, and would die from the effort of escaping. And my friend would believe they were horrible again. Every day, we scraped a little more of the tar away. But my friend would see new tar on their fingers and mine and believe the stain was only spreading.

When I needed to go home to sleep, to see my family, and eat something that didn’t taste like smoke and oil and petroleum, my friend would weep.

“I know you like them more than me,” they’d cry. “You only feel sorry for me. You’re tired of all this tar. I’m noxious, I’m poison.”

One day, when I came back to visit them, I didn’t see them at their usual resting place near the edge of the tar pit. I walked to the ledge and looked down, and there they were, ankle-deep in the tar again, among the animal bones and the boiling toxic fumes. 

This time, their excuse was that they’d left their favorite watch somewhere in the tar, and they wanted it back. Their arms were sticky up to their elbows, searching for it. I can’t remember if they found it or not. Not that it matters. 

They had a lot of excuses over the years. They’d scream for help and someone– sometimes me, sometimes other passing folks– would hear and come lift them out of the pit. And each time, there would be fresh, hot, sticky tar on their skin, and anything that touched them would stick to them and die there or come away stained. 

We tried soaps and creams and pumice stones. Sometimes, these things worked. But as the tar started to come off, so too would the dead mice and luna moths and spiders, the dead white flowers preserved in the black, the suffocated frogs and trampled baby snakes and those allegedly pretty crocheted socks and layers of skin. And it hurt. And it disgusted them. And then the next day I’d find them back in the tar pit again.

I visit them every now and then, of course. I bring them snacks and little things I think they’ll like. 

I’m not the only one. Once, I saw them pull another would-be-rescuer deep into the tar with them. He screamed and strained to get away from the tar pit, but my friend clung to him, desperate and grateful, dragging him deeper and deeper into the thick, viscous, stinking mass. He only barely escaped, spitting and crying and swearing to me that he’d never return to this place. 

“He abandoned me,” my friend despaired. “He said he wanted me, but he left. He acted like I was disgusting.”

“That wasn’t nice of him,” I said, passing them the bottle of sticky-sweet honey mead, their favorite.

“It’s because I’m awful,” they said, taking a drink and passing it back.

It’s because you tried to drown him, I thought. 

“I want you to come out of the tar pit,” I said. I say this every time. “Come out and try again.”

But a long time ago, they stopped trying. 

“This is my home,” they say. “I’m made of tar.”

They get angry at me when I tell them they are not made of tar. They are made of blood and flesh and that’s why they hurt so much. That’s why they can’t survive. 

You don’t notice it creeping up on you, but at some point, when you hang out near the tar pit, when you spend so much of your time trying to save the person inside, you become aware that all of your things are stained with tar. You go to kiss someone and your fingers stick in her hair, and you have the sudden and terrible sense that you’re becoming tangled in some terrible trap you can never escape and you flinch away so hard that you rip her hairs out. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It doesn’t come off. I feel horrible.”

“You’re not horrible,” she says. “It’s just the tar.”

But it feels like the tar is a part of me now. 

“I love you,” I say to the person in the tar pit.

“I’m going to die here,” they cry up at me. Nowadays, they’ve sunk in up to their neck. Their pretty pink shirt has long been submerged in the burning black tar. Their hair is a sheet of slick black rubbery ooze. Their lips are close to the surface. 

“Please come out,” I say.

“I can’t,” they reply. “I’m trapped.”

“Take my hand,” I say.

“I can’t,” they reply. “It’s too far away.”

“I’ll throw down a rope,” I say.

“No. It’s too hard to raise my arms from the tar now. The tar is too thick and heavy.”

“Why aren’t you calling for help?”

“I’ll just drown them. There’s no point.”

“We can get lots of people. We can bring machines.”

“There’s no point,” they say. “I’ll just stain them. They’ll all be cruel to me anyway. No one wants a tar monster ruining them with their touch, spreading tar everywhere they go. And I hate them all for that.”

“The tar comes off,” I shout. 

“You know it doesn’t.”

“You have to try,” I plead.

“I’m going to die here,” they say.

“Let me help you. Let anyone help you. Come drink the mead you like. Come eat the cakes you like. Come get a new pair of fluffy socks. But you have to do something to save yourself. Please. You have to try.”

“I’m going to die here,” they say.

I’m sitting on the ledge now. I’m watching their eyes as their face sinks closer to the surface of the tar. 

“I love you,” I say again.

“No one loves me,” the sea of tar responds. “I am poison. I am rot. I will suffocate you.”

“I do love you,” I lie to the tar.

“I ruin everything. I am hate.”

“I love you,” I lie again to the tar. 

“Why are you lying?” It gurgles and hisses and steams. “All you have for me is pity and resentment. Touch me and I will drown you.”

I am lying because I still see my friend’s eyes peeking over the black oily pit. I can still see the color they dyed their hair on top– pink, their favorite. I can still see the bunny hair clip they like. 

They’re still in there. 

My friend lives in the tar pit. 

Only the tar speaks now. 

It will not let go of them. They will not let go of it.

[gorogues]

Spoilers for Absolute Flash #1!

This issue jumps around a lot in time, which is fitting for a Flash book because the concept's intertwined with time just as much as it is about speed. To sum up: Wally has terrifying new speed powers and is on the run from his angry father (Rudy) and probably the US military, and the events of the past two days are revealed in stops and starts. Wally was lonely on the military base, and one of the base scientists (Barry Allen) made the ill-advised decision to bring him into his classified lab to see the messed up secret project Rudy and the military have been working on. There are a bunch of apes imprisoned in the lab, including a weird alien-looking one, and Barry hopes to connect with Wally by offering him a position within the project. Rudy is pissed when he finds out and forbids Wally from getting involved, but Wally goes back anyway while Barry's in the midst of an experiment, and things go so awry that Barry's reduced to bones. Wally believes himself responsible for the death and has now gotten weird powers, and presumably he then went on the run -- and now Rudy has sent the Rogues after him.

The Rogues consist of Captain Cold (who may actually have that rank in the military), Digger Harkness and his intelligent boomerang tech that he talks to and seems to consider as a partner, Lisa (presumably called Golden Glider, though not in this issue), and Jesse (who's been called the Trickster by series artist Nick Robles, but isn't called that here). Digger calls Jesse creepy, and I'm glad for it because she/they/he definitely has an unsettling look thanks to that eerie helmet and long gangly limbs. Len says to bring Wally in alive, but clearly leaves open the possibility that they might go for the kill.

The end of the issue is a flash-foward to one year after the rest of the story, and features what is presumably Mirror Master looking at some of the project's classified files. Among them is an image of what appears to be Tar Pit, and an invasion from Gorilla City. Wally's also shown making contact with the little simian creature seen earlier in Barry's lab, and that might be this universe's Grodd…though that's just supposition based on its prominence in preview images, and writer Jeff Lemire's comment about Grodd being a major character in this series. Also, one year later the project's lab has been left in ruins, and maybe a villain did it, maybe Wally did it, or maybe it was even done by the military itself.

This was a pretty good start to the series, and I'm cautiously optimistic about it. We'll probably see more of the Rogues' pursuit of Wally at some point, and it seems likely that Tar Pit will show up in the near future. And there'll likely be a conflict with Mirror Master in a later issue, or maybe it'll even be interspersed with the other arcs taking place in the present. The time jumping does make for a chaotic story, so hopefully there won't be too much of it to make the plot confusing. It seems probable that Project Olympus is an attempt to attain super speed or perhaps some other type of power -- Barry dies wearing a Flash suit that Wally later wears -- and that will likely be revealed over the course of the series. And who knows whether Rudy will forgive Wally for what happened, or whether Wally would even want him to; Rudy doesn't seem to be physically abusive, but he's certainly a crappy authoritarian father. However, he's not wrong about the project being dangerous, and he may have genuinely wanted to keep his son safe.

It'll be interesting to see how the various Rogues are revamped in the series, and hopefully we'll get some neat takes on lots of Flash villains! Mirror Master does seem spooky. I'm still not sold on Trickster's kinda edgy take thus far, but maybe it'll turn out well and be an interesting creative choice.

[crepuscular-girlthing]

some people don't want to get better. they think their suffering makes them special, so they stay in it instead of building friendships or relationships, instead of having a job or a life. they are fundamentally lesser because of this choice. this is a reasonable assessment of how people behave rooted in empathy and facts. thinking this of others makes me better than them. i am a good person.

[pamithebunterfly2007]

Got bored today so I made these smol edits for funsies.

Backgrounds made by DracoAwesomeness and @lizzietherwbychibifan.

[saltingthecookingwine]

Thirteen years ago today, on July 20th, 2010, I smelled the La Brea Tar Pits, started cough-laughing about how bad it smelled and tripped over my own feet.

The mildly creepy dying animal sculptures are worth the trip alone. The museum was nice too.

[ben-miller-art]

Flash Villains - Tar Pit

Not sure why I wanted to draw Tar Pit, but I did, and it was fun. He's definitely a staple villain with a lot of charisma, and honestly a kind of tragic origin. He definitely needs to be used more. I give major credit to Flash villains who pose an actually physical threat to him, that aren't speedsters.

Design wise there isn't much to change or work with, IMO. I considered adding some bones to him, but that would lean more into a natural tar pit, of which he is not. My biggest concern is making him visually different to characters like Plasmus or Clayface. And despite how much I enjoy how he turned out, I don't know if I succeeded on that front. A problem for later I guess.

[a-pain-in-the-neck]

la brea

[stregoniconiconii]

i'm still just. like i won't lie i'm actually shocked. there are people out there that think stancy making a come back marks a rise in conservatism. i don't think i've seen such a bad faith interpretation in my entire life.

[gorogues]

Hi! 👋

So what’s the difference between the comic version Rogues and the Arrowverse Rogues? I haven’t watched any live action stuff about them but I would still like to know the difference between these two. (Backstory and personality-wise, but you can add other stuff if you really want to)

Thank you!!! And have a good day/night :)

Hi! It's been a few years since I've watched those shows, but here's as best as I remember it.

Len: The Snarts had their comics backstory of a violently abusive ex-cop dad, and Len raised Lisa after their father went to prison. As an adult, he tended to work with Mick and Lisa in criminal activities, but was still protective of his sister and he killed their father after dad had risked her life as part of a criminal scheme. He continued in crime, but developed a working relationship with Barry and they eventually came to an agreement in which Len could commit crimes as long as he didn't kill anyone or tell anyone about Barry's identity. He was later recruited into the Legends of Tomorrow and came to relish heroic work, which ultimately led to conflicts with Mick, and Len then sacrificed his life to save the Legends and defeat the Big Bad. He had a lot of similarities to comics Len, although more of an interest in heroism, and had a closer and even flirty relationship with Barry.

Lisa: The Snarts had their comics backstory of a violently abusive ex-cop dad, and Len raised Lisa after their father went to prison. As adults, they worked together in crime and kidnapped Cisco to build weaponry for them, which they used to attack a crime boss and commit general shenanigans. However, Lisa flirted with Cisco and he had a thing for her, and she came to Team Flash for help when she thought Len had been kidnapped. It turned out that Len was on a job with their father because dad had secretly implanted a bomb in Lisa; Team Flash got the bomb out and Len killed their father for the cruelty he'd inflicted on her. After that, she was generally involved in crime with her brother until he joined the Legends of Tomorrow and was killed, but we don't know much about her activities after that. Personality-wise, she was very flirty but extremely tough and a bit of an action junkie, so pretty similar to comics Lisa. No skates or jewel weapons, though.

Mick: He had the most development and most airtime of all the Flarrowverse Rogues, and thus unsurprisingly the biggest character arc. He began as a one-note raging villain, and later received a little more depth but had an in-universe reputation for being stupid, violent, and thoughtless. Even his best pal Len treated him like he was stupid, sometimes quite overtly. Over time we learned that he had a lot of past trauma (his father was a traumatized and abusive Vietnam vet), and he formed bonds with new caring people and was able to show his depth: still grumpy, but intelligent and with surprising interests. He became a successful novelist and basically blossomed into a different person over the course of Legends of Tomorrow. You can see aspects of comics Mick (who has gone through phases of being a one-note raging villain and also been more gently sensitive) in him, but he's radically different in backstory and character portrayal.

Digger: Very different from the comics. He was an ex-special forces operative who became a mercenary and was drafted into the Suicide Squad, but Lyla Michaels tried to liquidate the team in the field and Digger's brain bomb malfunctioned so he didn't die…and then he came after her and anyone associated with her for revenge. He set a bunch of bombs and tried to blow stuff up, but in the end he got killed. He certainly seemed more like an ex-military soldier than a criminal or supervillain, which fit well with his CW backstory but he was nothing like his comics incarnation.

Owen: Very different from the comics. He wore a comics-accurate outfit…but it was Digger's outfit, not Owen's. He was just a villain/criminal who decided to take Digger's mantle after he died, and he worked for the Red Death (a crime boss). He was basically just a skilled asshole, but a smartassed and entertaining one. Also had an interesting friendship with the second Murmur.

Roy Bivolo: He only dealt in negative emotions -- fear and anger -- and was a bit of a psycho who did angsty edgy art and seemed to enjoy hurting people. I liked that the show did a more accurate depiction of his achromatopsia than the comics ever have; he wore dark glasses and his hideout had low lighting to accommodate his vision problems. There was a female Rainbow Raider (Carrie Bates, not another Roy Bivolo) later on who dealt in positive emotions, and she was fun.

Hartley: He was pretty different in that he was a perpetual jerk, even after he'd reformed. He was an engineer at STAR Labs and a protégé of Harrison Wells (who was Eobard Thawne in disguise) but hated Cisco, and when Wells seemingly replaced Hartley with Barry he developed a violent grudge against them all. He mostly used sonic tech rather than musical instruments, and used tech to cope with the damage done to his hearing by the particle accelerator accident. He was pretty cruel as a villain; at one point he sent some metas to destroy a city dam, which could have killed thousands of people. Anyway, he didn't get over the grudge for a long time, though the universe reset itself a couple of times and eventually he got a boyfriend named Roderick who was hurt by a battle between Hartley and the Flash. Team Flash helped save his life, so Hartley more or less let go of the grudge and reformed for Roderick, and later helped Barry when he needed it.

James: Mark Hamill reprised his Trickster role from the `90s Flash series, and he was kinda fun but not in a traditional James way. He was definitely a psychopath and a murderous criminal who tried to kill hundreds or thousands of people for laughs, but he had some theatrical panache while doing it.

Axel: He idolized James Jesse and was delighted to learn that James was his father; it turns out that his mother was Prank, James' old sidekick from the `90s Flash series. He's also a psycho who likes killing people, but he too has something of his father's style.

Mark: He and his brother Clyde had been violent bank robbers who worked together before getting meta powers. Clyde became the original Weather Wizard, but he was killed by Joe West and Mark took over the mantle and sought revenge. Mark was generally pretty murder-happy, especially towards Joe and the Flash. He had a kid like in the comics, but ironically she used tech and he had meta powers (so the opposite of pre-Flashpoint continuity), and she was older and tried to kill him for being a crappy dad.

Sam: He was a wannabe gang leader with his girlfriend Rosa (Flarrowverse Top), though he tended to talk over her and eventually she murdered him to take his place. He got his powers when he'd insulted Len and Len had been in the process of killing him when the particle accelerator exploded, but it left Sam trapped in a mirror for a few years until he freed himself. He was vain and showy and could travel through mirrors, but we didn't really see much of him.

Evan: There was a gender-swap, so she was Eva. It was a complicated story, but the gist is that the real Eva was killed in the particle accelerator explosion, and a mirror duplicate of her was created and trapped in a mirror universe. She didn't know she was a duplicate, and was unhappy to be trapped; she dragged Iris into the mirror universe and created a duplicate Iris in the real world. Once Eva escaped the mirror world, she killed her crappy ex-husband but soon learned that she was in fact a duplicate and her whole existence was a lie. She created a ton of mirror duplicates and they tried to destroy Central City, but she was convinced to stop and decided to make the mirror world into a better place for them. As you can tell from these events, she was basically nothing like Evan aside from the name.

Roscoe: There was a gender-swap, so she was Rosa(lind). She was a wannabe gang co-leader with her boyfriend Sam, but he tended to sideline her and eventually she killed him. She didn't spin (except for a gag when Jesse Quick tossed her into the air), and originally she only had vertigo powers. Later she gained empathic powers and quasi-telepathic powers and developed an odd frenemy relationship with Cecile Horton (who was part of Team Flash and had similar powers), which was the only thing I liked about her.

Dr Alchemy: His name was Julian Albert in the show, and he was a work colleague of Barry's who fell under Savitar's control after finding the Philosopher's Stone. Savitar used him as a cult leader granting/restoring powers to people in his Alchemy persona (which he didn't know was happening), but Julian was eventually able to break free from him and joined Team Flash. The team used him to contact Savitar, and as Julian he pursued a relationship with Caitlin and tried to cure her of her Killer Frost persona. There were some similarities to Johns' post-Flash: Rebirth revamp of him, in that he was Barry's bitchy co-worker instead of someone he befriended after Al reformed. The Savitar and cult thing was different, and in the CWverse the Philosopher's Stone was made out of Speed Force or something.

Abra Kadabra: Originally he was a cool criminal from the future with amazing tech that looked like magic (it gets my seal of approval), and then he was brought back in another episode which revealed he was a dude named Philippe who tried to destroy Central City because his family had been erased in Crisis and he was angry. Barry was kind to him and he backed down, and then he got killed while helping the Flash.

Magenta: A nice teen with magnetic powers and mental health issues from an abusive parental figure, so fairly similar to her comics self. She didn't have a romantic history with Wally or any member of Team Flash, and she got her powers from Dr Alchemy.

Lashawn: She was called Shawna, and her backstory was completely different. In the comics she committed crimes only to save her father's life, but in the CW she was an ordinary thief and tried to spring her loser boyfriend from jail with her teleportation powers. She joined Hartley's vengeance squad after a time incarcerated in the Pipeline, but wasn't okay with his plan to destroy the city and she told Iris West about the plan before anyone could be killed. So in that sense she was different from most of the Rogues, and somewhat like her comics self.

Girder: He was completely different. In the Flarrowverse he was a former bully of Barry's, and he was more like Colossus (from the X-Men) than Girder because he could transform from a human into a metal form and even looked like Colossus instead of a rusted junk pile.

Blacksmith: Also completely different. She was an odd woman who liked to reinvent herself with fake names and new personas, and she wanted to be a crime boss like her comics counterpart but wasn't nearly as intelligent or threatening. Her powers were better, though, and I liked her lovers/rivals relationship with Goldface. In the comics she could manipulate and meld metal and flesh, but in the CW she could shape a specific type of metal into projectiles and defensive functions.

Tar Pit: His backstory was completely different, as he was betrayed by a comrade and knocked into a tar pit, leaving him trapped for years underground and seeking revenge on those who wronged him after he was free. Thus, his personality was less cheery than his comics self because what he went through was pretty traumatic. He had a human form and a tar form instead of being a perpetual tar monster.

Double Down: His powers were mostly the same (though tattoo-based), but he was more of a gang enforcer in the Flarrowverse. And there was no cursed deck of cards in his backstory, alas.

Cicada: Totally different. In the CW, the first Cicada was a guy who blamed metahumans for his family's misfortunes and went on a killing spree, and then he was killed and replaced by an insane future version of his metahuman niece who picked up his war and murdered metas.

Murmur: There was a man and a woman who went by that name in the Flarrowverse. Neither spoke English (they both had their mouths sewn shut) so we don't know a ton about them, but they were surprisingly true to the original comics version. The woman used ASL, which gave us more insight into her personality and she was rather witty. I liked her friendship with Owen.

Chillblaine: Not exactly a Rogue, but the Flarrowverse version had a lot more development than his comics counterparts. He was a lot smarter (a former scientist) and liked to walk around shirtless, and he had a redemption arc but then went bad again and then redeemed himself once more. He was in a relationship with Killer Frost when she was killed, which devastated him.

[right-hand-of-the-black-sand]

My personal headcanon is that Black Sand as a magical substance is similar in appearance and function to tar. I especially believe that after my trip to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Most of the tar pits were blocked from public access for conservation purposes as well as public safety, but there were plenty of smaller pits in the grass for people to interact with. These interactions usually involved poking at the tar with sticks and then using the tar to draw pictures on the nearby trees. Yes, I do think that is exactly what Aladdin would have done if he had access to the sand.

Apart from the skeletons of animals that were excavated from the tar pits, there were also these handles inside the museum with metal plates on the bottom where you could collect and try to lift tar from the tar pits. When I tell you that I almost threw my back out at 24 years of age...

Anyway, all that to say that I think the magical Black Sand, especially as seen in The Secret of Dagger Rock, is a more maleable form of tar. It's extremely adhesive, it appears to have traits of a thick liquid, and those who get stuck in it are only made to sink deeper when they try to get out.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Tar Pit and Axel vs the Flash.

Complete with terrible late 90s/early 2000s slang!

Wally and Tar Pit are based on the cover of Flash vol. 2 #174, which was drawn by Brian Bolland.

[ohchrischris]

[tired-and-unjellied]

I once again wish my friend back then didn't refuse to teach me how to troll people, because, geez.

Speaking out isn't enough. I want them to bathe in their anger to the point they get away from the screen and go touch grass. Water so hot the frog would do its best to leave immediately.

Antisemites, anti-Palestinians, transphobes, misogynists, you name it

[pamithebunterfly2007]

Pami and her friends got stuck at a Tar Pit

Basically what happened that they go through a broken and old bridge that passes loads of huge pits of tar. They carefully tried to pass through but the bridge broke and all of them fell to the tar pit, unable to get out by flying and sink in until they are full submerged in tar. We are not sure that if they are able to get out or sink into the tar. And Damn, Kathy will laugh at them and share an embarrassing photo about them sinking to their doom.

(Note: This is my Main OC’s old look)

@chrisloch6-blog

@artgygrl

@nicky-toony

@notsoyt

@art1c-m0nk3ys

@berryboyhub

@frostythriller07

@gamerhyena33

[bricksxbooks]

"Love at First Bite"

LEGO Ideas Challenge Entry: Create Your Own Exhibition February 2024 ?? parts (brick built) MOC

Two dinosaur enthusiasts are excited to check out the new tar pits exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, but end up finding each other <3

Follow me on LEGO Ideas: bricksxbooks